The Nightmare Charade (24 page)

Paul reached up and removed his shape-change necklace, his bearded-man persona disappearing. He folded the stiff chain and tucked it into his pocket. “This way,” he said, turning toward the tunnel. A lantern hung on the wall next to the tunnel's entrance, and Paul picked it up and whispered a fire incantation. Flames appeared inside the glass frame, casting an impressive amount of light given its size. Holding it out in front of him, he proceeded into the tunnel.

“Where are we going?” I said hurrying after him and half-stumbling over my own feet. “What is this place, Paul?”

He glanced over his shoulder, a mischievous smile twisting his lips. “Why are you so wor—” The smile fell away. He stopped and faced me, his eyes level with mine thanks to his lower vantage point. “It's Eli, isn't it?”

I blinked at him, rocking back on my heels to compensate for the sloping floor. “What are you talking about?”

Paul motioned toward me. “You, acting like I'm an ax murderer luring you away to my favorite chopping block.”

I made a face. “That's not funny.”

“It is Eli, right?” Paul lowered the lantern as if it were suddenly too heavy to lift. It dangled from his fingers, bumping against his jeans. “I know he's not happy about this, assuming you even told him.”

“Of course I told him,” I said, my voice dangerously close to a hiss.

“Oh, yeah? What did he have to say about it?”

I opened my mouth and closed it again, gritting my teeth. Paul waited a few seconds, the silence a painful pressure as I searched for a response, one that didn't involve accusing him of killing his uncle.

“Let me guess,” Paul continued. “He thinks I'm involved, doesn't he?”

I stared at him, unable to think of a reply.

“Yeah, I thought so.” Paul pressed his lips together. Anger glistened in his eyes, which were colorless in the dim cave-like hallway around us, the darkness broken only by the flickering lantern light.

“Don't be silly,” I said, a hollow clang in my words. “I mean, yeah, he was mad, but did you really expect anything else from him?”

“Not at all.” Paul exhaled then drew in a breath deep enough that I saw his chest expand. “But I also know you're covering for him.” He waved off my protest. “It's all right. I don't blame you or him. Not given my history.” The timid smile that rose to his face was painful to see.

“I … I'm sorry, Paul.” I dropped my gaze to the floor, unable to bear his expression a moment longer. I wanted to say something better, but I couldn't think of anything.

“Do you believe in redemption?”

I raised my eyes to find Paul wasn't looking at me, but had bent his neck to the side, his gaze focused down the tunnel somewhere.

“I don't know.” Once more they were hollow words, a hollow answer.

Paul turned back to me, his expression closer to normal, that brokenness I saw in him a moment ago covered by a hard veneer. “All I can do is give you my word that I didn't kill my uncle. I was locked up in that cell with no way out of it for almost three weeks. That makes twice in my life I've been a prisoner inside the Rush. It was the worst thing I've ever endured. And I have no intention of ever ending up back there again.”

I stared at him, weighing this answer in my mind. I knew he could still be lying, but then the vivid memory of the Rush's cellblocks rose in my mind. I saw those upright coffin cells, the rust stains on the wall, and the oppressive darkness, the kind made worse by the knowledge of light existing outside of it, like that glass corridor leading to the prison, so warm and beautiful. Even at night it would glow a little with moon and starlight.

I slowly nodded. “I believe you.”

The hardness in his expression broke into relief. “Let's get going. We've got lots to do and only a little time. I've got to be at the front gates by five or my watchdogs will get suspicious and come looking for me.”

I followed after him, too leery of this underground journey to want to walk beside him. There were more signs down here warning people to stay out or risk being, “impaled, crushed, or incinerated.”

The sloping tunnel ended in stairs that circled downward in a dizzying spiral. It was impossible to tell how far down it went, but within seconds I was convinced we would be on it forever. The stone was crumbling around us, bits of gravel and dirt showering down with every step. Even our breath seemed to dislodge it.

“Seriously, Paul, where are we going?” Just as I said it the stairs came to an end, and Paul and I stepped out into a vast cavern, one so tall the lantern stood little chance of illuminating the ceiling. A thousand years of dirt and scree covered the floor.

Paul held the lantern aloft and turned in a circle, as if offering me a view of the place. “No one will discover us down here. It's not as structurally sound as it used to be, but we should be all right for what we're doing.”

I didn't like the word
should
but decided not to press. “It looks really old and not manmade. Not this part.”

“That's because this is a dragon's nest.”

I spun to face him. “A what?”

He grinned. “I knew you'd like it. Once upon a time, a female dragon lived in here and laid her eggs. See.” He scooted his foot against the ground, and I heard a faint tinkling.

I looked down to see what I thought had been scree was actually shells. Or mostly shells. There was plenty of scree and other bits of rock and debris mixed in with it. “Wow. This is amazing. So there really are dragons at Arkwell.”

“Well, yeah, I told you that, but they're not like the ones that used to live in these caves.”

“How so?”

“The dragons that lived here died out a long time ago. Or I guess you could say they evolved into extinction.”

Puzzled, I cocked my head. “How are the dragons different now?”

“Size mostly. And viciousness. Our modern dragons are a lot smaller, the size of elephants. But these”—he motioned toward the ceiling—“were the size of dinosaurs.”

I gaped, unable to imagine it. I'd once seen a life-sized replica of a blue whale hanging in an entranceway of a museum. It was so large it felt like a cheap gag. My mind couldn't wrap itself around the idea that something that big could also be alive, that it could move and think on its own.

“Our modern dragons are also domesticated.” Paul scrunched up his nose. “Sorta. Anyway, come on, there's a clearer spot over here.”

He led the way along the nearest wall until we reached a cluster of stalagmites standing up in a rough circle. Inside the circle the floor was clear of dragon shells. An old blanket and several pillows filled the space, along with a couple of additional lanterns.

“I brought some stuff down ahead of time to make this more comfortable,” Paul explained when I shot him a quizzical look at the item.

Stepping into the circle, Paul lit the lanterns with a wave of his hand. In the sudden burst of light, I noticed something odd on the nearby wall.

“What's that?” I pointed. Caveman drawings covered the stone. At least, that was what they looked like at first glance. But I soon saw they were more complex, akin to Egyptian hieroglyphs.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Paul said. “There's a lot of this prehistoric artwork in the dragon caves, even in the ones we're still using. Ms. Miller told me they were made by a prehistoric Native American tribe of witchkinds. The Iwatoke, I think they were called.”

“The Iwatoke,” I repeated, struggling with the strange word.

“They worshiped dragons, apparently. So most of this is about that.” Paul stepped closer to the wall, letting the light expand over the surface. He pointed. “See over there, that's the hatching and there's the mating ritual, and so on.”

I gawked, in awe of the scene before me. It was the kind of thing that made me want to grow up to be an archeologist, to become the magickind version of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, minus the guns and killing bad guys. “I would love to go exploring down here.”

“Oh, no you wouldn't,” Paul said, turning to face me. “This is as safe as it gets. That tunnel over there is almost impassable.” He pointed at another sloping tunnel leading downward nearby. “Even I'm not brave enough to go down there.”

I considered walking over for a better look but then turned my gaze back to the wall. “Dangerous or not, it would be really—” The rest of my sentence got derailed as my eyes took in a familiar shape. The sight sent a chill slipping down my spine, every hair on my body standing up.

The drawing was of another dragon. This one lying in a perfect circle, its arms and wings drawn close to its serpentine body. The dragon's mouth was open and it was swallowing its own tail.

It was the ouroboros. Right out of Eli's dream.

 

17

Growing Pains

“What's wrong, Dusty?”

Paul's voice broke through my shock, and I turned to stare at him, my mind still whirling. I turned back, walking over to the wall. I had to stretch my hand over my head to reach the ouroboros drawing. I ran my fingers over the rough surface, tracing the twist of the dragon's body.

“I don't get it,” Paul said, hands on hips. “What's the big deal? That symbol is all over the place down here.” He swung around and pointed at another spot on the wall. “Look, there's another and another.” He pointed to two different areas on the wall, and I flinched at the sight of each ouroboros. Every inch of my skin was tingling.

I took a deep breath, trying to regain my composure before Paul became convinced I was having a psychotic break. “It's Eli's dream. We've seen this symbol.”

“Oh.” Paul's eyebrows drew together. “So you think it has an extra meaning?”

I nodded. “It has to, only I don't think it means quite what we thought it does.”

“Huh?”

I glanced at him, uncertain of how much to tell him. Eli's suspicions about him kept pinging in the back of my mind, tiny warning bells calling for caution. “Well, it's a symbol of rebirth and renewal, according to the Internet.” Even the e-net, the magickind version of the Internet, said the same, and not much else. I'd made several searches about it over the last few days.

“You think it represents Marrow then?” Paul said.

Once again, I flinched, inhaling a quick breath. It felt wrong to discuss this with Paul. The contents and meanings in Eli's dreams were something I normally discussed with Eli, but so far we'd had little chance to talk. A lot of what we needed to talk about we couldn't with the Will Guard always around.

I ran a hand through my hair and faced him. The cat was too far out of the bag to try to wrangle it back in now. “Yeah, that's what we thought. I mean, we have reason to believe he's involved in the nondisclosure thing that the magickind Senate has us investigating.”

“Oh, I see.” He turned back to the wall, his gaze shifting between the various ouroboros symbols. “But I doubt these symbols have anything to do with Marrow. They were here even before his time, I'm sure.”

“That's just it,” I said, unable to keep the excitement from leaping up in my voice. “What if we were wrong that it represented Marrow? What if the dream's been pointing us toward the dragon caves all this time?”

Paul frowned. “I suppose it's possible.”

Suddenly all I wanted was to race upstairs and find the nearest computer connected to the e-net. I wanted to know what a search string combining “ouroboros” with the “Iwatoke” would turn up.

Except, proving my mom's innocence was more important. That had to come first.

With an effort, I pulled my gaze away from the symbols on the walls and focused on Paul. “I'll look into it later. Show me how to use this necklace.”

Paul returned to the circle and I followed him into it. He faced me and withdrew a shape-change necklace from his pocket. It wasn't his, but similar. This one held a blue stone instead of green with the same hemp chain interwoven with oddly shaped opaque beads.

“I just got it last night, but it works pretty well,” Paul said, stretching it out so I could see it better. “It defaults to a woman in her mid-thirties, I think. She's tall, easily my height or better. Her eyesight's not great, but otherwise, it's a decent shape.”

“Your height?” I looked up at him, cringing. He had me by half a foot at least. “Is this going to hurt?”

Paul hesitated long enough for anxiety to begin churning in my stomach. “Not hurt exactly. It's just really uncomfortable. But you'll get used to it.” He held the necklace out to me.

I took it, suddenly aware of how cold my fingers were, practically numb. It was chilly and damp down here, the familiar smell of canal water present as it was everywhere in Arkwell's vast underground, but I knew my current drop in temperature had more to do with what was coming. The necklace was lighter than I expected and undeniably magical. Already I felt its power tingling over my palm, ready to be unleashed.

I raised the necklace for a closer examination, anything to delay the next part a few seconds longer. My breath caught in my throat as I realized the white beads weren't beads at all. “Are these human
teeth
?”

“Yes.” Paul winced. “But I try not to dwell on it.”

“Gross.” I resisted the urge to hand the thing back to him. The knowledge that it was comprised of teeth made it feel dark. Evil. Black magic. “How did you get a second one?” His necklace had come from the police as part of his witness protection gig, but I doubted they would've given him another one just for kicks, not considering that they wanted to keep tabs on him.

“I got it from Mr. Culpepper,” said Paul.

I frowned, my dislike of the thing in my hand increasing tenfold. Although Culpepper was okay, I didn't exactly love his side job. When he wasn't fixing things around the school he ran a black market, one that included black magic items. “So I take it this is illegal?”